The founder of the Independent Wild Theater, co-host of “Toronto Television” and the “About” show, public figure Yaroslava Kravchenko told journalist Anastasia Bagalika for online.ua about whether the war changed Ukrainians for the better and why Ukrainians are waiting for someone to solve their problems.
Has the war changed Ukrainians for the better?
What do you think maybe we are naively evaluating ourselves and the social changes that are taking place, but there is such a mainstream opinion that war motivates us to become better?
I can't entirely agree with that. I cannot say that I have become better. I was just good before that, you know (laughs).
My circle is very conscious people, people who used to be responsible for what they did and used to have a social load in their lives.
It's not just you for welfare, yourself and your family. You have some piece of responsibility for something in this country. And that's why I can't say that my surroundings or I have changed much.
Yes, the tasks have changed. Volunteer projects appeared and started working. But, again, people use the skills and resources they had before the war. We reformatted.
You can't say that everyone has become so good; it's not true. It could be only in the first month when everyone was honest, open, and sound out of fear, and then gave everything.
We are already meeting people who speculate, steal “volunteer” help and do not deliver a “humanitarian” one.
If you go deep there, you understand that there are a lot of inhabitants in this swamp. And this is what we now have in parallel with the work, with the help of the front.
We still have a lot of work to do to control these people who haven't gone anywhere.
I really don't want to repeat this phrase: "War makes some people rich" but someone's consciousness has remained at the level that now it is possible to steal and it will not affect anything.
I recently saw a video about how two aunts, who look like grandmothers with hand trucks, steal paving stones. A young man approached and scolded them: “Why are you doing this?”.
Many people still do not realize that if these pavers are lying there, it was either bought by someone with their own money or by the state, but with your money, with the money of people who pay taxes. And how to change this moment? I still wonder about this question.
About changemakers in your circle
I want to say that the war showed some people in ways I did not expect.
Again, I am talking about my circle, but I have actors who have started to arrange some such vital initiatives and take part in them. Before that, he was just a good actor. There was no situation to see its depth. And here, a person immediately rushes in, helps, and invests a lot of energy. And it's very cool.
Yaroslava Kravchenko at the charity concert of the Women's Veteran Movement, June 1, 2022 (photo: facebook.com)
And such people who opened up, and such people who appeared thanks to a full-scale invasion, in my life, there are a lot. And this circle, which was cool before…
I am proud of my circle of existence. And now it is even more. And these are also changemakers who are responsible for what they do.
Read the first part of the interview with Yaroslava Kravchenko: Some people are only now becoming Ukrainian and beginning to understand what it means - Yaroslava Kravchenko.
Ukrainians are waiting for someone else to solve their problems
When discussing society, we think very little about how the state functions. People very often confuse the functions of the state and what are not its functions. Or volunteers and the state. Or the mass media and the state, when we regularly receive letters and calls from listeners year after year - “give it to the president.”
That is, you can explain for a long time and boringly that our function is not to hand it over to the president; on the other hand, you understand that people have a specific request, and you cannot satisfy it because the person himself is confused about it.
Well, I also face this a lot.
For some reason, many Ukrainians think that the press, mass media, bloggers, and influencers should only solve their problems if they think about how they can solve them themselves.
It's not even because they don't know how the state works. It is because they are lazy.
Well, that is, if you are fired from your job, please take your employment contract and read, take and read the company charter. Then, you need to find a lawyer to help you if you haven't figured it out.
I'm fired from my job! Urgent repost! Everyone is reposting urgently [because] someone is being fired! No one figured it out, and it has started. There is a lot of shifting of responsibility.
That is, I think it’s time for Ukrainians to grow up and learn what we have not known.
Yaroslava Kravchenko hosts the “Television Toronto” (photo: facebook.com)
Why financial literacy should be taught at school
Here, the problem is still in education. That is, I would like to study at a school that explains to me, teaches me to count to 10 and multiply (that's enough for me), leads me to how the state functions, what my rights are, and what my responsibilities are.
It teaches me financial literacy, how money works and what can be done. That’s why this complaint that the state does not pay us pensions is the result of a “sovok” [A person who uncritically supports Soviet values or has a Soviet mentality - Ed.], where people thought that at the end of their lives, they would live, and the state would pay them pensions.
If this same generation was adequately explained how to use finances and told that the state might not pay them, then they would probably work at some plant not to complete the work before retirement but would work in such a way as to build some kind of self-sufficiency system without relying on the state.
That is, now we cannot count on the state. But we do not know how to use the resources; we have to be independent of them and not complain about them.
You may also be interested in: Yaroslava Kravchenko is about integrity: When you have an elementary spiritual code, you follow it.
